“You’re all I need to get by.” Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige’s lyrics were threaded through the soundtrack at the Céline show. Sounds cheesy, but there’s a truth there. The wardrobe Phoebe Philo builds on, season after season, is what so many members of the professional class of women who attend Céline shows—and thousands beyond—actually do rely on to get by in daily life. Philo’s trouser coats, shirts, shoes—they fit the person and the psychic identity. “It’s personal,” says the designer. She intuitively channels feelings into product. And this season, this is what she feels: “I wanted to be optimistic. It was just this sense of joy and life force. It felt like a celebration. I thought, If there’s anything to say at the moment, let it be with love and let it be joyful.”
Philo gathered her audience close in and placed sleeping bags on benches to “give people comfort.” She said her research had reeled her back to the reason she’d been interested in joining Céline in the first place: the time before it had been “fashion” as we know it. “The advertisements of the late ’70s and early ’80s—this woman on the Avenue Foch in Paris. They had pleated skirts and big hairdos,” said Philo. “And the other thing was that they were quite a lot older and proud in their feeling about clothes.” She paused. “So I started looking at the designers of the early ’80s, pre-AIDS. I can almost not imagine what it felt like, to have that joyousness and freedom.”
It was far from a historical theme, but that backdrop—looking at the proportions of big-shoulder suits by Claude Montana, experimenting with trenchcoats and working into tailoring—led Philo into a collection she clearly enjoyed developing, with all the sui generis, innovative quirks that keep her audience hooked.
Greige-khaki suits with big shoulders and side-pleated skirts or trousers came with double-layered, looped-up trenchcoats. That evolved, through an array of belted coats, into long fringes of suede flying from dresses beneath, pliable giant envelope leather totes, and softly padded clutches. A huge range of footwear walked on: neat ’90s-styled booties with squared-off toes, ’80s-style kitten heels, a pair of black block-heeled ankle boots with a different piece of brooch-like jewelry on either toe.
Audience members were counting off intended purchases with every look. It’s the quality and the craftsmanship that make Céline so incredible. It’s fashion that squares the circle by being non-disposable—of the moment yet timeless. Bravo.
